Emanuel's food desert efforts fall short

City Hall announcements don't result in much change getting healthy food into underserved neighborhoods

August 28, 2013|By Bill Ruthhart, Chicago Tribune reporter

Maria Thompson waits with her children for a bus back to her home near 57th and Wood streets last week. She lives near a food desert. (Scott Strazzante, Chicago Tribune)

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has rushed to declare "great progress" in the war on food deserts, but the Tribune has found that many of his announcements about making healthy foods more readily available to Chicagoans have fallen short.

Among the findings:

•Two years ago, Emanuel proclaimed that Walgreen Co. would be selling fresh fruits and vegetables at 39 food desert stores by this June. City Hall counts nine that are open, but three of those are not in food deserts.

•The mayor also announced that 17 new grocery stores would open in food deserts. Nearly two years later, just four of those are open and one is being built, with at least two of them approved before Emanuel took office.

•Emanuel called on grocery CEOs at a "food desert summit" to build stores on 11 parcels primed for development. All 11 lots remain vacant.

After the Tribune contacted several supermarket and drugstore companies this month about the gap between what Emanuel pledged and what has been delivered, the mayor's press office put out a news release claiming its success in eliminating food deserts.

But in doing so, Emanuel aides moved the goal posts by narrowing the focus to a fraction of the city's food desert population — those who have the lowest incomes and live the farthest from stores. Before then, Emanuel had framed up the issue in broader terms to emphasize that the problem as more far-reaching.

"We've generally made good progress," said Michael Negron, Emanuel's policy chief who oversees the administration's food desert efforts. "We are working with the different chains to get them to open (stores) on timelines that remain aggressive, and we anticipate more opening in the coming months and year."

The food desert situation reflects a pattern with many of Emanuel's major initiatives: hold a flurry of events on the same topic meant to convey a sense of momentum on an issue and put out numbers that don't always hold up to closer scrutiny. Past reports in the Tribune have shown that dynamic unfolding on the administration's overestimated savings from switching the city's garbage collection system, overstated job creation numbers at his frequent corporate announcements and delayed projects at his Chicago Infrastructure Trust.

Vacant lots, fewer stores

Emanuel made combating the city's food deserts one of the core issues of his campaign for mayor. They're primarily located on the South and West sides, and leading research has shown that about 70 percent of those residing in Chicago food deserts are African-American. When the mayor is asked about dissatisfaction among black voters with his job performance, he has brought up his work to reduce food deserts as a point in his favor.

About a month after taking office, Emanuel held a food desert summit in June 2011.

In a wood-paneled conference room with executives from Wal-Mart, Walgreen Co., Aldi and other grocery chains seated to either side, Emanuel unveiled food desert maps. The mayor "built detailed business cases for specific plots of land in each desert area," according to an administration news release recounting the event.

More than two years later, those 11 plots Emanuel highlighted are empty, with little more than cracked concrete, overgrown weeds and scattered trash.

"Something like that is a starting point. It shows you brought some thought to the process," Negron said of the parcels the mayor pitched as open for grocery store development. "But when you go into the planning process and are actually looking for a site, you might find other areas make more sense."

Two weeks after the summit, Emanuel stood with Walgreen CEO Gregory Wasson to announce the company would add fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods to 39 of its stores in food deserts over the next two years.

In response to Tribune questions, the Emanuel administration provided the locations of nine Walgreens stores where fruits and vegetables are now sold and explained that the other six stores the company had counted are not in food deserts. The Tribune found an additional three stores the city counted that also are not in food deserts, according to the city's maps. An Emanuel aide said some of those stores are on the periphery of food deserts.

"It's not unusual for innovative programs like this to take several years to progress before they hit their stride," Polzin said. "As we learn more about what works and what doesn't at these locations, we are refining our approach to ensure we meet our customers' needs and go forward with a successful business model."